after a quick bite of schwarma (my favorite word), jenni and i decided that it was time for some random shopping. leaving the familiarity of the sunny, bright plaza by dov and moshe's store, we headed into the suk. as we entered labyrinth, we lowered the shades in order to avoid eye contact with shopkeepers asking us to enter their shops. we looked like naturals for about 50 yards. but the deeper we went the more obvious it came that we didn't really know where we were going. one ambitious shopkeeper tried especially hard to convince us to stop by calling out saying we dropped something just as he threw something to the ground, but we kept up our momentum and moved along speedily in with our bob jone's walk. passing through a variety of colors and smells, something shiny caught our attention. skirts--bright colored skirts. entering the store, there was already two spanish-speaking ladies engaged in negotiations buying us time to browse without being preyed upon. these ladies drove a hard bargain which put us in good standing for later negotiations. after about 10 minutes, jenni and i started our own transaction for two pure silk skirts and two decorative scarfs. we decided to go ahead and purchase them today... not only because we liked them.. but also because we knew we most likely wouldn't find our way back to the same store. the total price for the whole lot was 300 shekels. 
jenni did most of the talking and we worked him down to 190. being unsure of whether or not we had been ripped off, we stopped in dov and moshe's shop to chat. dov asked us what we bought expecting that we had been had on our first shopping trip. sheepishly we handed over the bag and admitted the price we paid. ready to poke fun, dov's smirk turned to genuine surprise at the quality of the items we had purchased. he complimented on actually getting a good deal, and told us that we couldn't really have done too much better. becca had told us that getting ripped off the first time was part of the experience, but thanks to our good bluffing skills and the example of our spanish friends we escaped with a good buy and some skirts that hopefully we won't see anyone else wearing at bju.---emby
2 comments:
that last sentence is where the true value of the deal lies. :)
Way to go, Jenni! That reminds me of our missions trip to Mexico when I was in Chicago and Pastor Knight lived to "bicker" (his word for it as opposed to "dicker") with the venders there. There were many times when the rest of us just walked away as he attempted to "speak-o the language-o."
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